The coming of 'Our Don'

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Rob Steen recalls a summer-long orgy 75 years ago of almost
superhuman run-making.

Just before the 1930 Ashes series, at a dinner thrown in the
tourists' honour by Surrey county club, came some involuntary
prescience from an unlikely source.

"Sometimes I dream that Bradman will never be dismissed for less
than 150 in the Test matches," admitted the chairman of the England
selectors, H.D.G. Leveson-Gower. "But it is only a dream." Few
nightmares can have come so close to complete fulfilment.

As Ricky Ponting and his expectant troupe prepare to drop in on
the past by visiting some French battlefields en route to London, a
more pleasurable historical landmark demands a spot of baggy green
cap-doffing.

It is three-quarters of a century since Donald George Bradman's
astonishing maiden Ashes tour, a summer-long orgy of almost
superhuman run-making that was an introduction few entertainers, on
any stage, ever can have matched.

In the 75 years since they tattooed his name through the
arteries of every Australian heart (and that of every
colonial-fearing Pom), the feats of the only sportsman to double as
immoveable object and irresistible force retain every shocking volt
of power.

No one, in any Test series, has subsequently come within 145
runs of the 974 Bradman amassed over that summer's five Tests. No
batsman has ever averaged 98 in his maiden English season. Nobody
ever made opponents and pundits alike consume their words more
hastily.

The magnitude of those feats can best be gauged by the efforts
of Bradman's predecessors: the highest Victor Trumper, Warwick
Armstrong or Charles Macartney had averaged in England was 58.37.
Yet when The Age analysed the announcement of a party
brimming with inexperience - only four members had hitherto visited
the Old Dart - Bradman rated not a mention.

The anonymous correspondent was too busy bemoaning the omission
of Jack Ryder in favour of Bill Ponsford.

For fluency of strokeplay, Bradman is perfection.DAILY CHRONICLE

Thirty months before Bodyline came wicket-enlargement. The
Marylebone Cricket Club asked the Australian board whether Bill
Woodfull and his men would consent to larger stumps for county
matches, and perhaps the five Tests. Refusal was polite, although
the board did assent to the experiment for games following the
final Test.

By then, the urn had been regained on Surrey's Oval patch, "Boy
Bradman" had graduated to "Our Don", and the British public had
grown accustomed to photo captions ruing "The smile that England
can't knock off" and patriotic evening newspaper posters
celebrating: "He's Out!"

By then, even the Scots were in thrall - "Bowral boy makes 140"
acclaimed one headline in the Daily Pictorial after the West
of Scotland captain had declared to ensure the holiday crowd "their
desired feast"; the subhead read: "Batted in heavy sweater."

By then, the board could have advocated erecting a fourth stump
for its golden gosling and still banked on him scooting to a
century.

What fascinates are the early sightings of the nimble NSW
number-cruncher. English fears and imaginations had been fired at
the turn of the year, when news came through that Bradman had
usurped Ponsford as the owner of the heftiest first-class score:
452 not out against Queensland at nigh-on 70 runs an hour. Now it
was the first spring of the 1930s, a time of unplenty.

A general strike had divided Britain four years earlier;
unemployment had soared by 500,000 over the past nine months to 1.5
million. Censors assessing the new wave of talkies had rejected 300
movies in 12 months, for sins such as coarse speech, drunken women,
religious ministers in "equivocal situations" and references to the
Prince of Wales.

On April 4, the Archbishop of Canterbury finally approved free
and open discussion of sex. Like most Europeans reeling from the
previous year's Wall Street crash, Britons needed cheering up. Even
by a 21-year-old Australian whose politeness failed to mask a
confidence clad in iron.

That historic overture, 236 at Worcester's picture-postcard New
Road ground, henceforth a well of plenty, drew a hesitant rave from
former Australian skipper M.A. (Monty) Noble: "Playing himself in,
by adjusting his free, effective methods to the needs of the
moment, he determinedly concentrated on the self-imposed job of
discovering just where the differences lay between Australian and
English conditions."

You would never have guessed Bradman progressed at nearly a run
a minute.

"A most interesting batsman to watch," opined the Morning
Post with equally well-disguised excitement. The Daily
Chronicle, mind, was seduced at first sight: "For fluency of
strokeplay, Bradman is perfection, the beauty being that he uses
his bat as a weapon of offence."

After an unbeaten 185 on a two-paced track at Leicester, even
the Morning Post was reaching for the superlatives: "It is
joyous to see Australia's second Trumper."

Mind you, Woodfull, revealed Sydney's Sun, had received a
letter advising him to open with Ponsford and Percy Hornibrook "in
order to break the back of the bowling" for his prodigy: the author
urged the captain to bat him at eight.

The capital was eager to inspect the new star. Queues for his
Lord's debut - against an MCC XI featuring Australian emigre and
trainee mandarin George "Gubby" Allen, and one D.R. Jardine - began
forming at 7am; when the gates were shut at 3pm, those inside
numbered 30,000.

"Cutting prettily" according to the Herald, Bradman made
66 before being bowled; in the second dig, he was castled again,
for four. "I am very optimistic that England will win the rubber,"
pronounced former England captain P.F. "Plum" Warner.

Inspired by a depiction of Bradman as possessing the eye of an
eagle, wrists of steel and the feet of a fairy, an Australian
cartoonist sketched him with sharp beak, metallic arms and
tutu.

In The Sun, Howard Ashton was mulling over the meaning of
it all. "Why do we continue to send cricket teams to England?" he
wondered under the headline, "Let us have really reliable
Tests".

"What are the Ashes," he continued, "that we should make two
nations miserable over them? Day after day, we scan the papers
(and) find to our horror that even Mr Bradman is not a certain
run-getter. The day we learned that he had been bowled for four
(against MCC), there was gloom over all the capital cities of
Australia."

His solution? A "batting machine". The groundsman could switch
it on, then go away for a smoke.

A flesh-and-bone run machine was certainly limbering up. Caught,
glancing, for 44 at Derby, Bradman reacquainted himself with
immortality against Surrey: 252 at more than 50 runs an hour.

So unquenchable was the energy, so insatiable the appetite, he
ran a four towards the end, then proposed a fifth before Alan
Fairfax sent him back. It left him requiring 78 to hit the
virtually unheard-of mark of 1000 runs by the end of May; he made
it with fully four days to spare.

"A marvellous blend of clever, stylish, and almost faultless
batting," marvelled The Observer.

The most ardent Surrey partisan could not begrudge any of his
runs.

Covering the game for the Daily Pictorial, A.G. "Johnny"
Moyes stuck his chin out. Not only did he lionise Bradman as "one
of the most amazing run-getters of all time" but one who "bids fair
to dominate the game for many years to come".

Less convinced was Percy Fender, Surrey's maverick captain.
"(It) was one of the most curious mixtures of good and bad batting
I have ever seen . . . He will always be in the category of the
brilliant and unsound ones."